I was recently asked by an acquaintance if The Resurrection is “Christian Fiction.” I’ve been gearing up for that question and, as the book nears release, 
expect to get it more. My answer went thus:
“It depends on what you mean by Christian fiction.”
Some authors and readers may cheer that response. Others may question my hesitancy to just own up to the label. Still others might flat-out charge me with denying the Lord. Nevertheless, I believe that nuance is important.
By “Christian fiction” if someone means, “Are there faith elements in your story?” the answer is a resounding “Yes.” But if by “Christian fiction” they mean, “Is this cheesy, preachy, predictable, sanitized stuff aimed exclusively at Christians and narrow-minded cultural conservatives?,” then the answer is a resounding “No.” Sadly, however, that is the caricature that our culture conceives when most anything is touted as “Christian.”
Whether right or wrong, “Christian fiction” has become a polarizing term.
Which is why I think I should ditch it. Or dance around it.
- I want people who avoid the “Christian fiction” label to read the book.
- I want people who enjoy the “Christian fiction” label to read the book.
And I think both can. Is this unrealistic? Am I walking too fine a line here? Am I trying to have my cake and eat it too? Is this just a refusal to recognize my market, or a legitimate attempt to cross over? Or am I half-baked?
What do you think? Should I embrace the “Christian fiction” label and everything — good and bad — it potentially conjures, or should I try to “play the middle”?
Maybe I should survey long standing authors of CBA fiction who have dealt with general market publishers and see what there take is on this question.
I would agree on a lot of these points, and that the definition of Christian Fiction has a lot to do with it. First, I think people mean at least two different things when they say “Christian Fiction.”
1. A story whose target market is Christians.
2. A story that has Christian characters, themes, and underlying or over messages inherent in the text.
The first tends to get labeled by the publisher, or sometimes by a bookstore owner familiar with the book. It will get shelved in the “Christian” section at a Secular bookstore, and if palatable to a broad cross-section of that market, could turn up in a Christian bookstore.
The second falls into at least three major categories. One, obvious and overt Christian fiction, where there is “preaching” or people getting saved, or God is a character, even if unseen, and plays a part in the story, etc.
Two, subtle Christian fiction, where there may not be a Christian character at all, or if there is one, their religion isn’t played up as a plot-integral element of the story, but more character background. Christian themes or underlying world views are there for the reader to grasp, but they are not spelled out.
Three, fiction written from a Christian world view but the story has no obvious or even clear “Christian” themes or messages to them, rather, they would be themes that are broad enough to appeal to any religious or non-religious person…like for instance the friendship of Sam to Frodo in LOTR. If there are Christian themes, they are buried under layers of allegory or analogies that most wouldn’t pick up unless someone pointed them out.
I think the problem you’re dealing with, Mike, is that you have a book that is, from what I’ve heard, more into #2 than the others (as some will have a foot in more than one), but #2 is the hard category. Because we feel the Christian themes and messages are subtle enough that its not going to raise a secular reader’s “Warning, Christian preacher alert!” alarms. So we would like to see it get out there. But because it does have some apparent Christian messages, even if subtle and not “preachy,” people will tend to label it as “Christian Fiction” in the #1 case, essentially barring it from serious consideration from readers we feel would like it and we actually hope to reach using the more subtle approach.
There’s some gray area here, books where due to content, some would label as “Christian” while others wouldn’t.
We probably don’t have a lot of control over where the publisher or bookstore manager decides what our “label” is going to be. But I think that’s the fear in answering that question, “Yes, it is Christian fiction.” We worry by saying that it will cause many potential readers who would like it to automatically judge it with preconceived ideas of what it is. You’ve probably experienced that due to the fact that you are being published with a CBA publisher.
But, I would tend to answer the question based on content rather than who the market is. Reason being, if I base it on the market, if it is for the secular market, say even though there are some Christian elements subtly but clearly there. Simon and Schuster (?sp) is publishing it as simply fantasy with no qualifiers, then I would be forced to say, “No, it is not Christian fiction,” which could be construed as a lie once someone picks it up. Much like a reviewer sent my Infinite Realities back to me with a note saying he didn’t review “Christian propaganda” and if he’d know that it was Christian, wouldn’t have said yes. And if it is labeled as Christian fiction by the publisher, you cut off the market you might hope to reach with a #2 type book.
So, what I would say in answer to someone asking me a question about a book in my Reality series, which has one foot in #1 and one in #2, so a real mixed bag, is that it does have Christian characters and themes, but themes few would object to, and the first goal was to write some fun stories anyone could enjoy.
Is that dancing? Probably, but that’s more because I’m focusing on the content as being “Christian fiction” rather than the marketing label. I would assume the former in a question/answer because the marketing label should be obvious, but it gives me a chance to define the market if I speak to content and the kinds of people who would enjoy it, rather than what label the publisher has printed on it or classed it under.
And I think there is another element to this to consider. In your case, you are being published by a CBA publisher and your book will go on some shelves in bookstores. So the market label becomes important on whether people can find your book or not easily (“Go look in the *cough* Christian section *cough*.”). But as more and more books are bought online, that matters less. Sure, you’ll select a subject category for the book, but how many people really pay attention to those on Amazon, for instance. It isn’t nearly as limiting as a shelf with a “Christian Fiction” label on top of it.
If any of my books are on a bookstore shelf somewhere, I would be surprised. Those who buy my books are most likely to do it online or from me personally. So on that note, it makes a lot more sense to discuss it from a content perspective, from my perspective as to what types of readers will like this most, as opposed to a straight-jacket approach.
So, there’s the long-winded way to say how I would answer that question. 🙂 Not sure whether it really falls under dancing around the issue for me, but more making the safer assumption as to what Christian fiction means and addressing that.
You are very right to be skittish about the label “Christian fiction.” And it should be a polarizing term. Why, you ask? Because it forces us to consider what we mean by “Christian.”
I was born and raised in Catholic family, and continue to profess the faith of that my fathers have professed for fifteen centuries. I pray God that I will die as I was born, in His Church. It is commonsense to me that unborn babies are as sacred as the rest of us, that marriage is the monogamous union of a man and woman open to child-rearing, and so forth… In this sense, I am an unashamed “cultural conservative.” I also have a deep affection for all Christians, however imperfect our communion with each other may be. Yet I have nothing but contempt, except perhaps pity, for the awful “cheesy, preachy, predictable, sanitized stuff” that you mention in your post.
The polarizing question is not really whether literature will be “cheesy, preachy, predictable,” or “sanitized,” but whether we will pretend that life is. The simple fact is that life is not “cheesy, preachy, predictable, sanitized stuff” and that literature, an exploration of the deepest truths of life using as its medium the letter and the word, cannot afford to be “cheesy, preachy, predictable, sanitized stuff.” So much of “Christian literature” is repulsive because it is “cheesy, preachy, predictable, sanitized stuff” that fails to describe life adequately. It cannot even lead the reader suspend disbelief long enough to refill the coffee he so desperately needs to make it through the first chapters of such stuff. Tolkien and his orcs and hobbits does a better job of convincing us of its own reality than most such rot does. Most of Christian literature is not only a lie, but a very boring lie.
Flannery O’Connor wrote about Catholic literature and by extension, I sense, all Christian literature, that it tends to be narrow because its readers tend to be narrow-minded. So true, so true. She lamented specifically that she received hate mail from Christians in proportion to her use of profanity. Real life, she lamented, uses profanity, and so any attempt to show a reality deeper than the surface of real life might also include incidentally some language that the author would never use otherwise.
This leads me to think of something Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote. He said that the Christian is free, except to be a sinner. In church, there can never be sinners, he said ironically. This speaks to the attitude of many in church (myself included too often, lamentably) who put up fronts, always our best foot forward, never willing to confess our sins to one another and come off our high horses. If we cannot let each other show our deep, wounded sinfulness, how can we possibly be expected to permit literature to show it to us?
What is needed in the Christian community now is twofold. Firstly, we must grow in virtue under the action of the Holy Spirit. Secondly, we must grow in peace with ourselves as we are – loving each other not for our perfections but for our imperfections: it is the harlot and the tax collector in each of us that needs love the most. The self-proclaimed saint inside is already nice and closed off to genuine human communion. But when we can say to at least one other brother or sister in the pews, “Here I am, friend. Look at what I’ve done. Can you still love me all the same,” then and only then will we come to know the love of God in a truly life-changing way. At that point we will be content, also, to let the characters in our novels say, “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man,” without running away screaming.
God bless you in your efforts to show us reality.
Mike, I went through the same debate with my debut novel and I cringe every time someone calls it Christian fiction. Most who have said that are non-Christians but still. It’s a label I am uncomfortable with. Do I have Christian characters and themes? Yes. But I worked very hard not to be preachy because I felt my story could reach far beyond that audience and it has. It’s disappointing to me when people shut themselves off just because a book has that label. I’ve even had one person who got mad because I used real religion. She agreed it wasn’t preachy. Thought it was good in most other respects but didn’t finish it because I used a real religion. That kind of attitude is ridiculous and sad to me but it’s out there and a challenge to every person writing anything with faith themes. So yes, I join you in eschewing the label and I will continue to do that.